


the winking of an eye

by torigates



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-04
Updated: 2013-11-04
Packaged: 2017-12-31 12:24:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1031682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torigates/pseuds/torigates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Damon showed up on Stefan's birthday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the winking of an eye

>   
> _From our birthday, until we die,_  
>  Is but the winking of an eye.  
>  \- William Butler Yeats

 

 

 

  
 **1847**

 

 

 

 

 

“Damon, come here please.”

He looked up from where he was playing with his toys. His mother’s voice floated from her bedroom. She’d been in there for what seemed like months, and Damon wasn’t allowed to spend time with her anymore. He missed her. “Yes mother?” he called.

“Come here, please, Damon.”

He got up and walked into his mother’s bedroom. The room was big and dark. He could make out her form on the bed, and he longed to run over and jump on the bed and cuddle up next to her, but father said he was never to do that anymore. “Yes mother?”

“There’s someone I want you to meet,” she said. She smiled down at the bundle in her arms. Damon suddenly felt apprehensive. What if he didn’t like what she was holding?

“Who is it, mother?” he asked.

“Your brother,” she said. “Come meet Stefan.”

He was tiny and pink, and Damon loved him. He knew it was his job to protect his brother.

 

 

 

 

 

**1869**

 

 

 

 

 

After Damon promised Stefan and eternity of misery, he disappeared for five years. Stefan missed him so much, he figured Damon was keeping his promise just by not being around.

He tried to drown his sorrow in alcohol, women and blood (not necessarily in that order), but it always felt like a part of him was missing.

“Hello, brother.”

If he’d been human, Stefan would have jumped out of his skin. Back when he was human, he would have jumped up and greeted his brother joyfully. As it was, he merely turned calmly away from the bar.

“Damon,” he greeted.

“Stefan.”

“It’s been awhile,” Stefan commented nonchalantly.

“That it has,” Damon agreed.

“Let me buy you a drink.”

Damon nodded. It changed nothing.

 

 

 

 

 

**1921**

 

 

 

 

 

The roaring twenties. It was probably Stefan’s favourite decade so far. He spent most of the last ten years travelling around the world with Lexie, but she had run off with her new human boyfriend. Stefan tried hard not to begrudge her that.

The one thing they don’t tell you, Stefan mused, was just how eternal, eternity can be. It got lonely after a while. All the people he knew when he was human were either dead or old men.

The Salvatore estate was depressingly empty.

“What are you doing here?” Damon asked. He was sitting in the sitting room. Stefan probably should have realised he’d be there. Their mother died fifty years ago.

“Remembering,” Stefan said.

 

 

 

 

 

**1947**

 

 

 

 

 

“Happy centennial, little bro,” Damon slurred. “You don’t look a day over fifty.”

Stefan couldn’t help but grin. “I don’t look at day over seventeen.”

Damon raised an eyebrow. “That’s pushing it a little bit, Stef, don’t you think? Shoot for thirty. You could totally pass for thirty.”

Stefan rolled his eyes. “You’re drunk.”

“ _You’re_ drunk.”

Stefan shrugged. He wasn’t wrong.

“Do you still hate me?” Stefan asked.

“Only mostly.”

This, he felt, was an improvement.

 

 

 

 

 

**1999**

 

 

 

 

 

“Happy birthday.”

It figured that both Stefan and Damon would show up at Times Square for the turn of the millennium without the other’s knowledge (or maybe Damon did know that Stefan planned to be there, it always was impossible to tell). Or then again, maybe not so surprising. Damon always did love the flashy things, and considering it was his second time celebrating a turn of the century (and a millennium no less!) Stefan figured he wanted to do it right.

“Damon, my birthday was months ago,” he pointed out.

“Was it?” he asked sipping his drink.

Stefan just looked at him. Damon shrugged. “Hey, maybe I wanted to be with my baby brother to ring in the new millennium.”

“Did you?”

“Maybe.” He waggled his eyebrows. “The world could end in a few hours.”

“It won’t.”

“How do you know?”

It was Stefan’s turn to shrug. “The very fact that we exist proves to me that the world is not going to come to an end just because some numbers roll around on the clock.”

“Hmm,” Damon said.

The ball began to drop. 


End file.
